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Date Posted: 21:33:10 11/28/07 Wed
Author: Hector C.
Subject: Rutgers, So. Fla., UConn & LBSU?

Rutgers, So. Fla., UConn & LBSU?
Article Launched: 11/28/2007 03:34:52 AM PST

It's hard to be an old-time Long Beach State football fan, or even a new 49er fan who wishes the school still played the sport, and not ask one simple question:

How did this happen?

How did South Florida go from not having a football team in 1996 to being ranked No. 2 at one time in 2007?

How did the University of Connecticut go from playing in the Yankee Conference to Big East football and a bowl game this season?

Who or what is Troy, a sub-campus of USC? When did Boise State go from just another Big West scrub to the darlings of college football? Where did all these schools in Florida come from, Cuba? When did Louisville and Cincinnati go from independents of little note to members of the BCS-eligible Big East? And how did Oregon State, Rutgers, Wake Forest and Kansas State come back from the collegiate dead?

When Long Beach State stared at the red ink bleeding from the football program in 1991, it made the tough but seemingly sensible decision to drop football and put its limited resources elsewhere. Whatever psychic gains came from George Allen's one season as head coach in 1990 were lost when he died and the team wallowed through 1991.

And even the most diehard football fan would have to admit that the usual home crowd for a football game at Vets Stadium would comfortably fit in the Pyramid, or at least the Long Beach Arena.

Yet here we are in this strange new world with strange new names thriving.

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There are 17 institutions that have become Division I-A teams since 1990, and all but three have attended a bowl game. In the wake of the 49ers, as well as Cal State Fullerton, Santa Clara and Pacific, dropping football, other schools went in the other direction.

South Florida launched a football campaign in 1991, the year Long Beach punted. By 1993, it had raised $10 million and launched a season-ticket sales program even though there was no football team in place. They played their first game in 1997, won their first I-A game in 2000, joined Conference USA in 2003, was adopted by the Big East in 2005, won its first bowl game last season and was ranked No. 2 in October of 2007.

Florida Atlantic University convened a committee to study football in 1997, created a founders program with more than 100 well-heeled members, hired former Miami coach Howard Schnellenberger to spearhead the program launch in 1999, and in 2001 took the field.

Boise State was a member of the I-AA Big Sky Conference until it filled a hole in the diminished Big West in 1996. Civic leaders launched its own bowl in 1997 (the Humanitarian), the Broncos joined the WAC in 2001, and last year made the BCS field, upsetting Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl.

Central Florida, Troy and Connecticut also took the road from playing lower division football, as low as Division III at the first two schools, to Division I-A status.

There are several reasons for the influx of newbys in the college landscape.

In 1994, the NCAA cut the number of scholarships a school could give to 85, thus sending talent usually stockpiled at the bigger schools elsewhere.

Despite being more farcical than a Marx Brother movie, the Bowl Championship Series, which began as the Bowl Coalition in 1992 and mushroomed when the Pac-10 and Big Ten joined in 1997, has given college football a huge goose of publicity.

Football in the south became its new cotton, and seven schools cashed in by jumping up from Division I-AA or jump-starting football, getting big paychecks to play SEC and ACC teams in nonconference games.

Conference expansion - every BCS conference except the Pac-10 has added a member since 1991 - and carpet-bagging created holes in some conferences that have been filled by the likes of South Florida and others.

Conference USA began in 1996 and the Sun Belt in 2001 as schools went looking for any kind of league that would give it stability. Thanks to the threat of a lawsuit, those conferences as well as the Mountain West and Western Athletic now have access to the BCS system, as Boise State did last season. Hawaii is expected to land a BCS bid this season.

The bowl landscape also blew up. There will be 32 bowl games this season; there were 18 in 1992. That means 28 more teams get a bowl "reward," and where once it took at least an 8-3 record for a team to secure a bowl bid, a .500 record is all that's required for bowl eligibility today.

The impact has helped the once-poor as well as the brand new.

In 1991, Oregon State went 1-10 and was in year 21 of a 28-year run without a winning season; Rutgers was in its first season in the new Big East and would go 18-75-1 in league play through 2004; Wake Forest had posted just six winning seasons since joining the Atlantic Coast Conference in 1953 and it would be 2006 until they did it again; and K-State had just posted its second winning season since 1970.

Yet the Beavers, Demon Deacons and Wildcats have all played BCS games in the last half-decade, and Rutgers was in the 2006 season's national title hunt.

All of this is in stark contrast to what happened in California. Eleven California schools have dropped football since 1991, including seven schools in the Cal State system. The only CSU schools playing Division I football are Fresno, San Diego and San Jose.

Title IX, the gender equity decision, became law in 1979 and was reaffirmed strongly in a 1988 Supreme Court decision that directed all schools to comply. In 1993, the California chapter of the National Organization for Women (CAL-NOW) filed suit against the CSU system for violations of Title IX.

The CSU system settled the lawsuit that same year and agreed to strict enforcement of funding and participation guidelines. That decision led other non-CSU in state to follow similar guidelines to forestall any other suits.

Schools outside California generally operate under components of Title IX that provide some latitude, most notably a "development" clause allowing schools to show compliance with a steady increase in facilities and opportunities. Not surprisingly, those schools with strong football programs were best equipped to fund women's programs.

Big West football, where Long Beach resided, never had any clout, and it died after the 2000 season. With the exception of Boise State and Fresno State, most of the former Big West football-playing members have continued to struggle on the field. UC Davis and Cal Poly are the only current members of the Big West who play football, and they do so at the Division I-AA level.

There have been modest suggestions to bring football back to Long Beach State. When one sees the Bulls of South Florida ranked No. 2 and the Broncos of Boise State running the Statue of Liberty Play to flummox Oklahoma, it certainly provides inspiration.

It could happen - if the school could find the kind of donors that created South Florida football; the kind of civic officials who put a bowl game in Boise; a fan base larger than that of Poly High School; a conference with some football clout; and the kind of Title IX flexibility that allows Florida to grow football while California football withers.

That's all.

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